


talk to me

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Series: Agent Robbie Reyes 'verse [12]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Relationships, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robbie Reyes Deserves a Hug, Therapy, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, Zoe ignores Season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: 'Robbie starts folding the shirt, tosses it on the chest of drawers and exhales heavily. “I’m going to therapy,” he says.'or, the one where SHIELD actually has a program for when the agents go through really traumatic things.





	talk to me

**Author's Note:**

> ahh! hello, and welcome to something less holiday-y than I was expecting to post this late in the year. it's good to be back in the ARRV, though :) enjoy!

Being called into Coulson’s office is never an inconsequential affair. Even though he’s everyone’s friend – and most people’s active father figure – he’s still their boss, and that complicates things. This is why Robbie is tense with anticipation when Coulson claps him on the shoulder and says, “Stop by later today,” because he suddenly feels like he is ten years old and being sent to see the headmaster.

Daisy would laugh if she saw how nervous he was, standing outside that familiar wooden door. He has no reason to be skittish like this but still, anxiety has seized Robbie and is refusing to let him go. He exhales and raises his hand, knocking three times and waiting for Coulson to welcome him.

Once the man opens the door, Robbie’s worries dissolve into nothing. What was there to be scared about, anyway? It’s just Coulson, just SHIELD. Nothing has changed. It’s fine.

“Come on in,” Coulson says, shutting the door behind Robbie and walking over to his desk. “I know this was a bit short notice, but we needed to go over some things.”

Robbie sits down in the chair across from Coulson and glances around the office, taking in the shelves of old toys the Director has gathered over the years. “Things?” Robbie echoes, his eyes finally sweeping over to meet Coulson’s. “Like what?”

Coulson shifts, uncomfortable for a minute. “It’s hard to tread lightly on this,” he begins, his tone like walking on eggshells. “So, here’s the thing, Robbie: you were just kidnapped. SHIELD has a thirty-day biweekly counselling program that monitors our agents for symptoms of post traumatic stress. It’s used after particularly strenuous missions and operations, or hostage situations like –”

“Kidnapping,” Robbie finishes, nodding. Coulson smiles warmly back at him.

“Yes. Kidnapping.”

“Coulson, I’m _fine,”_ Robbie says, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, because he is absolutely not going to meet some SHIELD-authorised psychologist and talk to her about his problems, because there is no way in hell he could even begin.

“Good,” says Coulson with the same optimism. “Because it’s mandatory. I’m sorry, Robbie; this isn’t a request, it’s an order. I’m telling you that this is going to happen. I called you in to fill out the paperwork and the confidentiality forms.”

The world shrinks. All Robbie can hear is the sound of his heart slamming against his ribs, dialled up to a million decibels and echoing in the tiny office. Robbie swallows back the nightmares, the flashbacks, the times he stopped waking up Daisy in the middle of the night because she needed to sleep, the incident during training where Robbie blacked out and came to five minutes later with Mack holding a fire extinguisher nearby. All he could remember was the inside of that truck, his hands tied behind his back, blood dripping down his neck.

There is no way in hell Robbie is going to admit this to a stranger.

Coulson’s brow is creased and concern has settled across the man’s face as he takes in Robbie’s silence. “Hey,” says the Director of SHIELD with complete gentleness. “Are you alright?”

Any more protests will be suspect. Robbie doesn’t even know _how_ he could get out of this: it’s mandatory, it’s procedure, it’s _protocol._ And protocol is the only rules he lives by nowadays. “I’m fine,” Robbie says again, nodding. “What do I need to sign?”

The expression on Coulson’s face tells Robbie that he’s not completely convinced, pulling his chair in closer and staring at Robbie in a way that makes him wonder if Coulson retained any of the Rider’s power to stare into a person’s soul. “Even after the program is finished,” Coulson says, “I’d recommend staying in counselling. After I met with your guy upstairs,” he smiles sardonically, “I was in therapy for almost four months. I don’t understand what you’re going through, but I… I like to think that I get it a little. Give yourself a break, Robbie.”

Coulson doesn’t know. He can’t know. He can’t have experienced those whispers in his head for months and years on end, of the blood and the gaps in his memory, and the terror of not being able to trust your own _mind –_ of Maia and those apparitions of Gabe – of the hordes of damned souls ripped apart with his bare hands.

Robbie hates the empathy in Coulson’s eyes, hates that he trusts Coulson, hates that his own murdering, trembling hands are being stilled by Coulson’s words, hates how much Coulson reminds him of _Eli._

“I’m sorry you had to make that deal,” Robbie says, instead of saying anything important. “But you still haven’t given me any paperwork, and I’m meeting Daisy for dinner.”

_Good,_ whispers the Rider gleefully. _If you keep pushing him away like that, he’ll hate you._

Robbie’s eyes are red-rimmed when he leaves the office. Daisy asks him if he’s alright at dinner; Robbie says he thinks he’s coming down with something and doesn’t say a word about therapy.

 

* * *

 

Robbie goes down to the holding cells to visit Dr Taine. He doesn’t know why but he does it anyway, walks down flights and flights of stairs and through a hallway dramatic enough for a spy movie. It’s a bad decision. That’s part of why he does it. He wants to talk to Daisy but he can’t find the words to start.

Taine is still kept in custody at the Playground; soon, she’s going to be delivered to the US government. He hasn’t spoken to her since SHIELD picked him up from that base and wasn’t planning on it. Now Robbie doesn’t know what he’s doing.

The orange plastic lanyard gives him access to the cell and Taine is standing in front of him again, on the other side of a clear, impenetrable wall. Her eyes flicker to his like a predator’s and Robbie approaches, slowly. “Look who finally showed up,” she says, her voice flat. “I bet you’re enjoying seeing me on this side of the bars, Roberto.”

“My name is Robbie,” he says without planning on it, angrier than he thought he was. “And I’m not. Enjoying it, I mean. I wanted to talk.”

Taine laughs, sneering at him. “Talk about what? The network? My impending prison sentence? There’s nothing you could say that might interest me.”

“No,” Robbie says, and sits down across from her in the little plastic chair on his side of the boundary. “I wanted to talk about me.”

Taine recoils, as if she hasn’t even thought Robbie a necessary or notable conversation topic. _“You?”_

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath, his shoulders slumping. “Do you know what you did to me?”

Brow raised, Taine stares back, unimpressed. “I wrote it all down, too.”

“Do you _know,”_ Robbie repeats, voice trembling with fury, “what that _does_ to a person?”

Her expression doesn’t change. “Obviously not very much where you’re involved.”

“You left me in a box!” Robbie says, and he is shouting, ragged with anger. “You left me in a _box_ for seven days, _alone,_ with barely enough food to survive – you would have let me die once you ran out of uses for me and you -” Taine is still watching. Bored. Robbie asks, “How long was I in that truck?”

“What?”

“When you took me,” he says, carefully controlled. “How long was the trip? How long did you have me under?”

Taine frowns thoughtfully, as though he has asked about the weather. “Three days.”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ –”

“Then another twelve hours before we woke you up.” She is cold. Calm. Terrifying in how little she cares, the blandness in her words. Robbie is left staring in horror and feeling very small.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks, because that’s all he can say, the only thing that comes. His voice sounds hollow and broken. He doesn’t know what he’s doing down here, doesn’t know why he came. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you?”

“I’m a scientist,” Taine says simply, tilting her head to the side. “Sometimes I have to do bad things for the greater good.”

“Torturing me with that stuff, was that for the greater good?” Robbie spits, stepping closer, a kind of mad that even the Ghost Rider can’t touch. “Breaking open dimensions to keep me sedated, was _that_ for the greater good? Was -”

“Robbie.” The call breaks the spell and Robbie glances back, all the fight seeping out of him. It’s Fitz standing at the top of the stairs, one hand resting on the railing. Robbie’s chest lurches and he steps back, raising his arms.

“Listen, Fitz, I’m not -”

The Scotsman shakes his head, gesturing for Robbie to follow him. “I don’t care what you were doing. She’s not my business.” Robbie doesn’t know how to react, just stands rooted to the spot, slowly bringing his hands back to his side. “I just, um, I heard – I heard you talking and I thought maybe I could help.”

_“Help?”_ Robbie asks, perhaps with too much scorn, because Fitz flushes pink all the way down his neck.

“I didn’t always used to stutter,” Fitz admits, swallowing hard. Robbie catches the grit in his words, the snag of bitterness in his voice. “Have you heard of a man named Grant Ward?”

Robbie looks from Fitz to Taine and back again. “Why don’t we go upstairs?”

Fitz nods and Robbie follows, trekking up the spiralling stairs without a word. Fitz takes him through the eerily quiet Playground, around the halls, into the lab. Robbie’s hands are clenched into fists, his jaw tight to keep himself from shaking, whole body tense and on edge from the encounter with Taine.

Fitz takes a breath and looks Robbie in the eye, pointing at him across the lab table. “That,” he says, “was stupid.”

Robbie recoils. “Dude, what the hell?”

“No,” says Fitz sternly. “Listen to me. We’re on the same team now, and that means when I see one of my team members being _reckless,_ it’s my responsibility to help.”

Robbie rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t -”

“Yes, you were!” Fitz cuts him off, increasingly agitated. “Robbie, I know what’s going on, because – because –” For a moment the words shut off abruptly, slamming into the space behind Fitz’s teeth and gathering there. “Because I know – I _know_ what this is like. Coulson’s just put you in counselling, hasn’t he?”

A bolt of anxiety shoots through Robbie’s stomach but he plays it off, glancing down. “What makes you say that?”

“Because that’s what _I_ did,” Fitz says in frustration, and Robbie finally understands. “I don’t know how much you know – about what Ward did to us, did to Simmons and I – but I – I was told I’d have to spend thirty days –”

“In a biweekly therapy program,” Robbie says, and they finish together. “Yeah. I got the memo.”

“I thought it was _bullshit,”_ Fitz emphasises. “I could barely speak. I was relying on someone who wasn’t even there to keep me halfway sane; if it hadn’t been for Mack -” He pauses, shakes his head. “That’s not the important part. What’s important here is Ward.”

“Ward,” Robbie repeats, wary. “Daisy’s told me a bit about him. The traitor.”

“He dropped Simmons and I into the ocean to die,” Fitz says with a cold bitterness Robbie has never heard from the usually peaceful scientist. “I was deprived of oxygen to the point where the doctors thought I might never recover. It took years to get better and I’m – I’m still not quite –”

“No,” Robbie says quietly, “I get it. You don’t have to explain, Fitz.”

“But I _do,”_ he says urgently. “I do have to explain, because of _you._ Because when Coulson put me in that program I was so angry with Ward for messing me up, so furious at him for being such a terrible person that I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t find myself in all that wreckage.”

Robbie shifts his stance, closing off again. “And you think that I –”

“I _know_ that you’re angry, Robbie,” Fitz says. “And I know that you thought that would help, if you could make her feel what you felt – it doesn’t work! I know that now! And I know what I did was stupid and reckless and bad for me in the long run, to make him feel what I felt, because I _tried.”_

The admission makes Robbie go silent. “I tried,” Fitz repeats, spreading his hands. “Messed with the oxygen settings in Ward’s cell. Not enough to hurt him permanently, no, I… but I did try. And I regret it.”

“Why?” asks Robbie, because he doesn’t have the chance to regret things. He doesn’t have the liberty of dwelling on his kills; he’d lose his mind.

“Because I crossed a line,” Fitz says, his voice firm and definite. “In me. I did something I told myself I would never do, the sort of man I never wanted to become. And Robbie –” he hesitates briefly, then ploughs on, “- you’re a good man. A very good man.”

Silence.

“And that’s why,” Fitz continues, understanding Robbie’s lack of response. “Because it’s my job, as your teammate and your _friend,_ to take care of you when you’re going to do something _very stupid.”_

“I thought you weren’t a doctor,” Robbie says roughly, trying for a smile.

“I’m not,” Fitz says, remembering those moments halfway to hell. “But you should go to counselling, you know.”

“I have to,” Robbie reminds him. “It’s protocol.”

“The thirty days?” Fitz shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

Another silence.

“Thank you,” Robbie says suddenly, and Fitz smiles, short and genuine.

And then Fitz reaches out and hugs him tight, pulling Robbie close, firm and strong. He’s surprised at first, at the contact and at the affection, but relaxes eventually, returning the motion and shutting his eyes. It’s ridiculous how easily Robbie is won over, standing for a long moment with his arms around his teammate.

No, not only that – his friend.

* * *

 

Ten hours later Robbie can’t sleep and Daisy is too peaceful to disturb, so he heads down to the gym and takes out whatever the hell he’s feeling on a punching bag. The room is dead silent save for the slap of flesh against the cloth, Robbie’s breath a staccato accompaniment to the rhythm of the strikes. In the time between, an observer could hear a pin drop.

Fifteen minutes in the skin begins to scrape off of his knuckles, a pain on impact that Robbie doesn’t even notice at first. It’s going to be enough, though, to sting sharply in the morning, but he doesn’t care, just lets the heat build up in his shoulders and hits harder.

A half hour after Robbie began he realises he’s bleeding. Three of his fingers are sticky with blood and his hands are smoking, the plastic polymer halfway melted through with the imprint of his fists. He bites down hard on his lip and shakes out his hands, wincing. His hands are a bit more torn up than he previously thought.

“Did that make you feel any better?”

Robbie whirls around at the sound of the voice, poised again to strike. But it’s just May standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, eyebrow raised. He lowers his arms to his sides, rolling back his shoulders and relaxing slightly. “Melinda,” he greets her softly. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“Why are you up?” May asks, and Robbie swears he can hear concern in her voice for a moment. She moves further into the room and sits down on one of the exercise balls, somehow managing to make it look graceful.

“I could ask you the same question,” Robbie replies, completely aware that deflecting won’t make him look any more put together. “It’s pretty late.”

May shrugs. “I was thirsty. I was in the kitchen down the hall and saw the light on in the gym; I was curious, and here I am.” She pauses, a tiny smirk touching the edge of her lips. “And there’s also a closet nearby with some extra boxes of condoms, so –”

“God, come _on,”_ Robbie complains, making a face, but he can’t help but smile. It’s a nice change from how he’s been feeling lately, and May seems completely in tune with it.

“Your turn,” she reminds him, and Robbie shifts, turning away. “Nightmares?”

“Halfway,” he admits, his voice a hollow glass. It’s easier to speak when he isn’t facing her. “That or insomnia. I can’t win.”

The silence folds Robbie’s words into a confidential package marked for May alone. “Have you been talking to Daisy about this?”

Robbie laughs, bitter and afraid. “She has enough on her plate without my bullshit.”

“She’s worried about you,” May counters, standing again and pulling Robbie around to face her. “Daisy? She wants to help you. She cares about you. And thinking that you can power through this without confiding in her, your _girlfriend?_ If you can’t talk to her, who _can_ you talk to?”

Robbie’s breath is ragged and slow, his frame outlined in the gym’s dim lighting. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not me you should be apologising to,” May says. “I don’t think you have much to apologise for at all. But I _do_ think there are much healthier ways to cope than beating the shit out of some poor punching bag at three in the morning.”

Robbie drags a hand across his face, shaking his head. “I know. I _know,_ I just –”

“It’s hard,” says May, her eyes warm and understanding. “I know. It will be hard. But it will also be worth it, Reyes, do you understand? This team isn’t something that will let you go easily.”

“I know,” he whispers again, blinking hard. “I know.”

“Get some rest,” May says, and when _she_ hugs him, Robbie is almost too surprised to respond. Melinda May doesn’t hug. She keeps her emotions under wraps and her physical affection non-existent. Her reaching out to Robbie is the largest gesture of trust May has ever made in terms of their tentative, budding friendship.

It makes him feel safe, and secure, and loved. He shuts his eyes and breathes, for once, a shuddering vulnerable inhale. Because he trusts her too, enough to let her see this fear, this emotion. They understand each other completely.

In reply, all he whispers – all he can say – is, _“Thank you.”_

* * *

 

The next day is a blur. Robbie spends it with his heart in his throat, drafting things to say to Daisy, wondering why the hell he can’t just open his mouth and tell her. _Coulson put me in therapy, and I think I’m going to stay. I think I need to._ No, it’s… it’s more than that. _I know I need it._

The words don’t come. Daisy asks him if he’s okay. He says yes. He’s lying. Daisy asks him if he’s okay. He says he doesn’t know. The day passes in a blur.

The day passes in a blur.

Robbie has been back on base for a week and a half and every day he’s been getting worse. He’s started expecting the LMDs behind closed doors, forgets to eat if Daisy doesn’t make him. In his heart Robbie knows that he needs this. He’s known for a long time. He’s just – afraid.

He steels his nerve, goes to Coulson’s office, and moves up his appointment to the next day. SHIELD patients are a priority. Daisy asks him where he’s been.

“Coulson’s,” Robbie tells her, forcing his voice steady as he pulls his shirt over his head and changes into pyjamas. Daisy is already sitting on the bed, her legs crossed.

“Why?”

Robbie starts folding the shirt, tosses it on the chest of drawers and exhales heavily. “I’m going to therapy,” he says, and a jolt runs through his entire body. _There. I did it. I said it._

He’s barely breathing.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Daisy says as though Robbie had commented on the weather or their dinner plans. “When? We should make the appointments on the same day so we only have to drive once. I get that it has to be classified, but the location is so far from here I swear we should be taking a quinjet.”

Daisy. In the haze of his bravery Robbie can hardly hear what she’s saying, just puts two and two together and sits down heavily on the edge of the bed. Daisy scoots over behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder, her voice soft and concerned. “Babe? Hey, is everything alright?”

 

Robbie shrugs and Daisy puts her arms around him, wrapping her legs around his waist like a koala. “Hey,” she whispers in his ear, reaching out to grasp at one of his hands. “I get it. I was scared too. It’s scary.” Robbie chuckles and she can feel his laughter all against her cheek, running down and pooling in her stomach.

“But I’m proud of you,” Daisy murmurs. “Doing this? It’s hard. But it’s worth it, I swear.”

“I know,” Robbie says in return, suddenly choked up again. “Fitz cornered me downstairs about healthy coping mechanisms.”

Daisy laughs too, suddenly, and they’re both sitting there, these puzzle pieces fitting perfectly into each other, her head resting on his shoulder. “Fitz,” she says with a sigh, and a smile comes to Robbie’s face because he knows _exactly_ what she’s talking about.

“I love you,” he whispers, his voice sandpapery and low.

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

The next day Daisy and Robbie take the Charger an hour off the base to a redacted location, and beside her Robbie feels much braver.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I adore receiving comments and kudos. my tumblr, thoughtsbubble, is always around for messaging and yelling. :)


End file.
